The British state, the media and Middle Eastern regimes: Interview with Matt Kennard

In this special episode of Podaganda journalists Ben Cowles and Steve Sweeney interview investigative journalist and author Matt Kennard about: 

 

The British intelligence services’ co-opting of the Guardian newspaper (11:37) 

 

the establishment’s propping up of the brutal Saudi royal family (30:42)

 

and the Windsor’s connection to Bahrain’s absolute monarch (44:23) 

 

As always brace yourself for profoundly left-wing views and plenty of bad language

 

Show Notes

 

Read the Guardian’s Edward Snowden NSA leaks here: bit.ly/2Bq8x8C 

 

You can find Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis’s article How the UK Security Services neutralised the country’s leading liberal newspaper here: bit.ly/2MtqF83

 

Kennard and Curtis’s article Britain’s Secret Saudi Military Support Programme can be found here: bit.ly/2J3Jtsi 

 

Their latest article, How the British establishment is working to keep Bahrain’s ruling family in power, can be read here: bit.ly/2MrpS7w 

 

Remember when the Guardian published the ads praising Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for empowering women? Read Ben’s article about it here: bit.ly/32xpHgs 

 

You can read Ben’s article on the outcry from human rights campaigners to Elizabeth Windsor’s invitation to Bahrain’s absolute ruler King Hamad to the annual Royal Windsor Horse Show earlier this year here: bit.ly/31r7kZo 

 

You’ll find Matt’s books Irregular Army: How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror and The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs the American Elite here: bit.ly/2J2TAgK and bit.ly/32sXszj 

 

Mark Curtis’s excellent book, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, can be found here: bit.ly/2pA8jJe 

 

View former Labour MP John Woodcock’s record on the register of members’ interests, including his paid trips to Saudi Arabia, here: bit.ly/2pwcCFy 

 

Read about former Labour MP Mike Gapes’s trip to Saudi Arabia here: bit.ly/2oTqXMk 

 

Follow Matt Kennard, Podaganda, Ben Cowles and Steve Sweeney on Twitter via: @DCKennard, @PodagandaCast, @Cowlesz and @SweeneySteve.

 

Intro music by Jamie Thrasivoulou and Andrew De’Ath.